Think Green Live Clean

In one of New York’s public housing complexes, a recent grassroots recycling education effort has taken place. Gloria Allen, at the young age of 82, has started a community recycling education program for all of the 4500 residents. Historically, recycling in New York’s public housing projects has been horrendous with only 17 percent of household waste recycled. The City of New York has made it mandatory to recycle by passing a law that forces residents to recycle their waste, but unfortunately a law is sometimes not all that it takes. “It takes time, patience and energy” say Ms. Martin and much of that energy is coming from Martin and her associates. She has been on a mission since 2007 to not only decrease waste and pollution and increase cleanliness around the housing projects but also to dispel the stereotype that lower-income communities don’t care about recycling or the environment. The truth is that they do because they are usually the ones most affected by these problems.

The recycling movement starts with education; education on what is recyclable, where to put different kinds of recyclables, and why we need to recycle in the first place. Ms. Allen and Ms. Martin have provided this education by going door to door and teaching each resident the basics. They want so see their success at this housing complex replicated throughout New York, which has the largest public housing in the country. With over 2.1 million people living in public housing throughout the country, this grassroots movement could lead to huge change and it seems that it has already begun to catch on!

Federal stimulus money has been used in the same housing projects to replace old and inefficient water heaters and other appliances reducing energy usage. It has also been used for tree planting and green job recruiting. Out of the nine buildings in Gloria Allen’s neighborhood, five have implemented legitimate recycling programs with one still in training and the other three are next. “We don’t need to have a million dollars to do that (recycle) and improve our environment,” Martin said, which is a good axiom we can all live by.

to read more on this topic in the New York Times click here…